Sign Petition to Save Student MetroCards

In December, the MTA announced plans to cut student MetroCards as part of a package of budget cuts, a move strongly opposed by the UFT. Without the free passes, a half million New York City school children will be left to finance their own way to school.

On March 17, students from the Urban Youth Collaborative and Students for Transportation Justice will meet with the chairman of the MTA, Jay Walder, to urge him to work with Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson to save their MetroCards.

The Working Families Party has put together a “teachers and parents petition” that the students will take along to the meeting. They want to walk in with thousands of teachers and parents at their back, to make clear to the MTA — and the media — how important free student MetroCards really are.

Please take a minute to sign this online petition and share it with other teachers, parents or family members of students who might be interested.

“We are parents, teachers, and family members awed by the enthusiasm of NYC students who are going all out to save their school MetroCards. These students shouldn’t pay for Albany, the City and the MTA’s budget troubles. We support them in their fight. Please save Student MetroCards.”

The students’ goal is to gather 5,000 signatures before the March 17 meeting. They have been fighting for months to pressure leaders from the MTA, City Hall and Albany to save their MetroCards, and it’s time to show that teachers and parents have a huge stake in this too.

4 Comments:

Not again! Two organizations – the UFT and WFP – that stood by and allowed mass transit to be defunded are now posing as friends of the riding public.

I’m wondering if Leo Casey could again explain why the UFT leadership refused to join the Straphangers Campaign when they fought so hard to gain funding for the MTA through congestion pricing. I know the official line about the Delegate Assembly not approving it, but I’m wondering how he, Michael Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten felt about it personally.

I’m not speaking for Leo Casey, I don’t even know him. But, I can say that there is likely a difference in the UFT’s mind between siding with the Straphangers Campaign and supporting a student’s ability to have cheap access to mass transit to get to school.

I’m not saying that the Straphanger’s issues did not have merit, its just not our domain as part of the UFT.

MTA – please do NOT take away student metro cards. Our students need to get to/from school, especially in this tough economy. Our families and NYC pay enough in metro card purchases so students should get school metro cards. You’ve already cut thousands of MTA workers in train stations and increased train/bus fares, now you want to go after our kids? What the heck is wrong with you folks? Stop mismanaging funds, giving your execs bonuses & raises, spending on things we don’t need! Millions of people ride the train every day – you get enough money from us. Manage the money correctly and let students keep their metro cards!

The same way that it is the responsibility of the MTA to provide transportation around the city, even though they are guarenteed to lose money on the service at the end of the day, if they can keep crime rates low and keep the student dropout rate from increasing, it is their responsibility.
In the end, the MTA is one of the agencies that is vital for the health of the city. If one agency (the DOE) is finacially unable to provide a service, the MTA should step in.
As far as the cost of the actual students taking the public transportation, the actual cost is close to nothing, since they have to run the service anyway. There are ”special” buses just for students (I don’t know who pays for them, but some of them could be consolidated to improve efficiency), but in schools near train stations, there is literally almost no extra cost for the extra riders.
By the way, for those of you who were wondering, I wrote a letter to the MTA and they said that about 69.5 million rides were taken by students last year, and about 71 million rides were taken by students last year. About 140.5 million rides were taken in total by students. Therefore, if they all bought a MetroCard with a 15% bonus, there would be an average fare paid of $1.93. $1.93 x 140.5 million = about $271,165,000 in lost fares every year. That would probably be how they arrived at the $214 million figure. However, between students dropping out and students trnsferring to closer schools, I say they would be lucky to get half that amount.

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